Today is U.S. PRESIDENT'S DAY, which used to be George Washington's birthday, until they decided to combine the celebrations for Washington and Lincoln, who were both born in February.

Georgia on my mind
Back in 1973, Washington's birthday (always held on the third Monday of February) fell on February 19, which is one of the reasons I was named 'Georgina', in honor of the great statesman. (The other reason was that my dad happened to be in Georgia when I was born.) Yup, I'm turning 31 this week, which is a pretty cool thing because, as I keep telling people, in a few more years I'll actually be the same age I've always felt. How nice it will be to feel younger than I am, for a change!


I'm asking my favorite storyteller (whom I happen to be married to) to run a role-playing game instead of throwing a standard party this weekend (although there will be food, including my famous spaghetti, if I'm up to it). I'm not sure if everyone from my usual posse will be keen on the idea (though I'm pretty sure Vin and Carl are game), but what the heck, it's my birthday. License for unrestrained selfishness only comes around once a year.


in the news today
A hapless Greek man went online in an attempt to understand why his 25-year-old wife spent so much time on the internet on their home computer. Following a link in the cache of their shared browser, he hit upon a pornography site which featured a video of his wife having sex with her lover. The 30-year-old from Athens called police, who arrested a young man (not the lover, though) on charges of running the exhibitionist site. What happened next between the husband, the budding porn star, and her lover is anybody's guess.

TRIVIA QUIZ
What does the temperature of sand have to do with sea turtles?


answer to yesterday's question
Visually, absolutely nothing happens to a goldfish if you tie a piece of styrofoam under its chin. Once you remove the styrofoam, however, the goldfish will swim diagonally, with its head raised, clearly demonstrating that it had previously been compensating for the added weight of the styrofoam. More interesting is the fact that laboratories and funding agencies actually spend good money to find out stuff like this, including the fact that, if you pour booze into a goldfish bowl, the goldfish will get drunk. I coulda told them that...


Let's flap our fins for Marco, Vin, and Dean, the co-winners of today's Smartypants award!